An image forming apparatus which forms a visible image on a sheet, for example, plain paper, using an erasable color material, is provided. The color material includes, for example, a color compound (a precursor compound of pigment), a developer, and the like. The color compound exhibits a color by an action of the developer.
An erasing device which reduces the action of the developer to the color compound to resolve a coloring state by heating the color material of the image, thereby erasing (non-visualizing) an image, is proposed.
The image forming apparatus includes a fixing unit that heats a color material of an image to fix the image to a sheet. An image forming apparatus having an image erasing function in which the fixing unit also serves as the erasing device is proposed.
However, in the image forming apparatus, in order to erase the image, when the sheet is transported to the fixing unit also serving as the erasing device, excessive loads more than necessary may be applied to the sheet.
In addition, in the image forming apparatus, the sheet subjected to the image erasing several times may lose rigidity (hardness), or may have scratches at peripheral edges.
The sheet losing the rigidity or the sheet having the scratches at the peripheral edges may cause jam of the sheet in the image forming apparatus.